


Instinctive Reactions to an Unsurprising Self-Admission

by lauraxtennant



Series: Ten/Rose Collection 2013 [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crack, F/M, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 06:04:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lauraxtennant/pseuds/lauraxtennant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose only goes to his room to give him a cup of tea. What she finds, and the subsequent conversation she has with him, is a complete turn for the unexpected. The unexpected, though, turns out to be a little bit brilliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Instinctive Reactions to an Unsurprising Self-Admission

Rose stepped into his room with two mugs of tea and raised her eyebrows when he jumped up from his bed with a gasp.

"Rose! What are — what are you doing in here?"

She regarded him curiously. "Um, I just came in to ask you if you wanted a cuppa, that's all - " Walking forwards, Rose held out one of the mugs to him. He flinched and backed away from her, standing behind the other side of his bed. Bemused, she placed his tea on his bedside table instead, and took a sip of her own.

"You could've knocked!"

"Oh yeah, 'cos both of us do that, don't we, when we're about to enter each other's rooms?" she chuckled wryly.

"Yes, well, maybe we should start! Imagine if I just strolled into your room while you were, I don't know, undressing or something!"

"Yeah, you've done that several times already, Doctor," she pointed out. She arched an eyebrow. "Were you undressing?"

A blush tainted his cheeks. "No. But that isn't the point!"

"You all right?" she asked him carefully, confused by his behaviour.

"Yes, I'm fine, thank you," he replied hotly, shifting from foot to foot. "Perfectly, absolutely, completely normal and fine, fit as a fiddle, although why a fiddle would be fit is anyone's guess but then again you humans do come up with funny sayings — like 'right as rain,' come on, what does that even mean? Rain can't be right. Although it can be left, if you're on the planet Adgora, but then that's more a sort of dewy precipitation than what you'd refer to as rain, so - "

Rose shook her head at his rambling, letting her eyes travel briefly over him whilst she waited for him to finish.

"Oh my god," she realised suddenly, her eyes widening in surprise. She pointed at him with her free hand. "You're aroused!"

"What? No! Can't be, couldn't possibly be, Time Lords didn't - "

"Get aroused, yes I know, so you've said," she laughed. "But look at you. You are."

"I — I can't, I - " he stammered, his face going red with embarrassment.

"It's all right, Doctor," Rose assured him. "Nothing to be ashamed of."

"Stop it," he said insistently. "I'm — I can't..."

"Doctor, you're giving off three proper obvious clues right now. Number one: dilated pupils. Number two: you were rambling in an even weirder way than usual just then, probably 'cos you couldn't stop thinking about sex. Number three: the most obvious hint of all..." She gestured to his groin. "So you might as well accept it," she shrugged. "What were you doing, anyway? Oh my god, were you watching porn? Did I interrupt you watching - "

"No! No, of course not!" he exclaimed. He swallowed thickly and looked down, waving a hand around manically. "I have utterly no comprehension of what this thinks it's doing!"

Rose giggled and took another sip of her tea, pondering his predicament. "Doctor, you have lived for nine centuries. Surely you've had an erection before."

"Well yes, but not spontaneously! You see, before I am physically able to have...to have..."

"Sex," Rose continued helpfully for him, when he seemed unable to say the word. She held her laughter in, knowing that she'd only embarrass him further if she called him out on his prudishness. Honestly, he'd had no trouble talking about Jack and his fifty-first century lifestyle once upon a time, but now, when it came to his own sex life, he couldn't even utter the word.

"Yes, that. Well, before that, I have to put myself in a state of mental concentration and such, and then there's this sort of — oh, it's difficult to explain, um...it's like a sort of dial that I twist — well, no, more a switch that I flick — metaphorically, of course. Inside my mind. If I want to. Well. Do that."

"So you control your own arousal," she nodded, understanding.

"Yes. So, I've...partaken in the activity over the years, for various reasons, you know; curiosity, mainly, but also just sort of, joining in for lark or education or...well, in the case of my..." He met her eyes and watched her reaction carefully as he continued, "Marriage, it was an obligation."

"Right," she replied, giving nothing away.

He squinted at her for a moment, trying to ascertain her feelings on what he'd just told her, but she was stubbornly being a very closed book, continuing to sip at her tea, apparently unfazed. He hurriedly continued, "And then, when it comes to the actual act, after putting myself in that state of induced arousal, for me to actually enjoy it to its full capacity there has to be an element of psychic link involved."

"Yeah, 'cos your people were telepathic, right? So...like, you need to feel completely satisfied or whatever by sharing your mind with someone, being close to them through a mental link?"

"Exactly," he murmured, feeling a shiver go down his spine as she spoke. He was inexplicably and immeasurably pleased that she understood this.

"So, in a way, you don't feel attracted to people in terms of, well, the way humans do? Like, physically..."

"Wellll, that's sort of a...grey area. You see, we weren't supposed to acknowledge such an attraction, no. But I always felt that was a bit...ridiculous, really. True, there was no biological imperative involved like there is with humans, because Time Lords didn't reproduce through sexual intercourse - " She gave him a triumphant grin as he said the words. He pulled a face at her in response then continued, "But even so, it's more the way we'd been trained to repress attraction to someone else than something innate in us that physically prohibited the feeling."

"So you were brought up being told that you shouldn't feel attraction? Then when would Time Lords actually be allowed to have sex? I mean, back in the old days when sex was synonymous with reproduction alone for most humans, as opposed to being — what's the word?"

"Recreational?" he suggested.

"Yeah, exactly. Well, back then, people were often sexually repressed yet expected to have sex when they were married for the explicit intention of making babies, right? When the reproduction element isn't factored in with the Time Lords, then where does sex fit into your society exactly?"

"Within marriage," he shrugged. "The psychic link can only be ignited through it. If you wanted that kind of bond, you got married, had sexual intercourse, and huzzah, you have the psychic link and feel complete or whatever."

"Huzzah?" Rose smirked.

"Yeah, never saying that again," he mumbled.

"Right. So sex outside marriage was a big no-no?"

"Yeah."

She waggled her eyebrows at him. "But you abandoned such rules?"

"Well, like I said. Curiosity got the better of me. You know what I'm like."

Rose nodded. "I think I get it. You just wanted to see what all the fuss was about," she smiled.

He chuckled despite the situation. "I suppose so, yeah."

"But you were married once, too."

"Yes," he confirmed softly.

"And you had the psychic link with your wife," she said; again, not a question, more a statement.

"Yes."

"So the psychic link thing...you can only have that with someone you - " She hesitated for a split second then continued, "Love?"

"No, not necessarily. I mean, that was sort of a by-product of it, really, not the cause. We had arranged marriages, you see, on Gallifrey."

"Right," Rose nodded, though both of them knew that he hadn't really answered her thinly veiled question.

She leant against his wardrobe, watching him thoughtfully. "So, just to be clear, first off, you have to make yourself aroused by flicking the switch inside your mind; then, to be properly satisfied, you have to have that psychic link thing."

"Yep. I mean, sex is still quite enjoyable without the link, but it's — a nice bonus, sort of thing, if that's involved too."

"Blimey, what a lot of effort. All us lot have to do is rub up against someone or see someone naked to get us randy, then it's just a matter of..." she laughed.

"Well," he sniffed haughtily. "Time Lords have a lot more self-control than you lot."

"Evidently," she smirked, glancing down again.

"Oi, stop looking at it!" he demanded.

"Why? Think you can ignore it that way?" Rose asked, arching an eyebrow. "You're gonna have to do something about it, Doctor."

"Rose, please, just..."

"What?"

He sighed, and moved around the bedpost, sitting down heavily. "This is so embarrassing."

"Stop worrying about it," she told him calmly. She set her tea down on the bedside table and came and sat next to him at the foot of his bed. "Doctor, you don't have to let this be a problem, you know. Just accept it, deal with it, and move on."

"But it — it - "

"It what? Disgusts you? That you feel like this without you telling yourself to?"

He shook his head slightly. "No, it's not — I mean, it does feel...wrong, but it doesn't disgust me, I'm just — I'm just confused!" he sighed.

"Well, let's think it through. What were you doing, when it happened? Maybe you were distracted or something and accidentally triggered your whatever-it-is that allows you to be aroused."

"You can't just accidentally do something like that," he replied. "My mind's too complex, I wouldn't..."

"Okay, all right. So what were you doing? Were you thinking of anything or anyone in particular?"

"No, I was just - " he broke off abruptly, his eyes going wide. "No...no, no, it couldn't — no, wait, could it? No! No it couldn't have been, I always..." He jumped up, away from her, backing up towards the doorway. "Right, I'm just going to, um, go. You — er, enjoy your tea," He gestured to their mugs absently. "And I'll see you tomorrow."

"Woah, woah, wait a second," she called after him, following him out of his bedroom. "What's going on? What was it? What were you thinking of?"

"Please just leave it," he pleaded with her, as he backed down the corridor.

She couldn't help but smile. The urge to tease him was just too much. "Was it something you think I'd find really odd? Were you thinking of fixing the temporal flux capacitor or something? Is that it? Fixing your ship turns you on? 'Cos you needn't be embarrassed, Doctor, I've always known you and her have a special relationship," she grinned, still following him as he scampered away from her as quickly as he could.

"No, Rose, I was not thinking about the TARDIS, nor do I have the sort of feelings for my ship that you are implying," he said impatiently, going from room to room in an attempt to put as much distance between himself and Rose as possible.

"Where are you even going?" she asked, starting to jog to keep up with him. "Look, you can just say if you're going for a wank - "

"Rose!" he exclaimed, interrupting her. "Don't be crude!"

She rolled her eyes. "Listen, it's perfectly fine, you know. Perfectly normal."

"Hmph, for humans, maybe," she heard him scoff from around the corner. Then, his footsteps abruptly stopped, and she rounded the corner and caught up with him, stumbling into his back in surprise as he just stood there, completely still.

"Doctor?" she mumbled, steadying her balance and then moving around him to look at his face.

When she came into his field of vision he swallowed convulsively.

"What's wrong?" she asked, confused.

He stared at her with the strangest expression she'd ever seen him wear. It was that same old curiosity on his face as usual, mixed in with that awe he showcased on his features when he was looking at something spectacular, mixed in with something else entirely; an expression she'd not seen him ever make until earlier in the evening.

"Doctor, why are you staring at me as though I'm some sort of confusing, awe-inspiring thing that you're lusting after?"

"Because you are," he replied instantly, before slamming his hand over his mouth. His eyes nearly popped of his head. "I didn't just say that," he mumbled against his hand, "Did I?"

"Yeah," she murmured shakily, not quite sure what to think. "Yeah, you did. Sorry."

"Oh." He dropped his hand.

She shifted awkwardly under his gaze. "Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"Look, I know we're mates and everything, but..."

"Yes?"

She bit her lip hesitantly for a moment, then ploughed on, "Okay, so this might be awkward, but I think it'll help. Do you want me to, um, talk you through it?"

His eyebrows drew together. "Talk me through it?"

"Yeah, like, teach you how human men..." she gestured to his lower half.

"Oh!" he squeaked. His mind boggled at her suggestion.

"'Cos I'm presuming you've not had cause to do that before, right?"

"Right. No, I...I haven't, no." _Liar,_ the thought arose instantly. _Liar._

Oh Rassilon. No. He couldn't lie to her. Then again, if he told her...oh blimey, she would punch him in the face if she knew.

"Doctor?" she said uncertainly, watching his conflicting thoughts play out on his face.

"Rose, I..." he hesitated. This confession was potentially life-threatening. Could he really do it? Or should he go with the earlier confession first? Because that first one was infinitely more romantic, even if the second one stemmed from it.

She grabbed his hand, leading him through the nearest door. They'd ended up in the library. Rose looked around, suppressing a smile. "Bet there are some books in here that'd be useful," she murmured.

"Not really," he murmured back. "I think manuals about this along with, er, erotic literature, are probably the only reading material the TARDIS library has not acquired."

"God, you're boring," Rose teased gently.

"It's just not usually part of my life, Rose," he whispered, afraid to speak too loudly. He didn't know why he felt he should keep his volume low; it certainly wasn't like he ever shut up when he entered this room usually. Countless nights he and Rose had spent together on the very sofa they were just about to sit on, him rambling on about this, that and the other. Her, falling asleep against his shoulder. Or sometimes, they read together, narrating different parts of the story. Oh, he loved those moments. When she'd curl into his side so that she could read her page, adapting her voice to the different characters just like he did.

But really, the best moments occurred when he read poetry to her, and she just sat there and absorbed it all; happy poetry, and she'd laugh against his chest as he looped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer; sad poetry, and sometimes she'd get these tears in her eyes, so overwhelmed by the words that she'd grasp onto his hand and intertwine their fingers as though she never wanted to let go.

"I know it isn't," she replied, breaking him out of his — in reality, split-second - reverie. She folded her legs under her as she sat down, and he sat down rigidly beside her. "Would you like it to be?"

Was she offering? But no. No, it wasn't, they weren't - no. They — no.

"I...have never really thought about it." _Liar. Liar. Liar._ "No, wait. I can't do this. I can't keep — Rose. Right. I want you to understand something."

She nodded. "What is it?"

He grabbed her hand from where it was resting casually on her thigh. He needed to hold onto her; she grounded him, always had. "Rose, this is all very unusual, I know."

"Unusual? For you or for us?"

"Both. I mean, I've never had to deal with this spontaneous and unyielding event before, and you've certainly never had to see me like this, so...out of control."

"You don't give yourself enough credit," she told him, smiling warmly. "You're still perfectly in control, you know. Sure, you want sex. But so what? It's not like you've gone insane with desire or whatever. You're not randomly humping any person you..." she trailed off, realising belatedly that they were alone on the TARDIS. She was, effectively, the only person he could be randomly humping at this moment in time. She tried to shake the thought from her mind.

"Rose, I'd never force you into anything," he filled in the silence determinedly. "Just because I..."

"I know you wouldn't," she interrupted quickly. "I just meant, you're not as out of control as you think. Yeah, it feels weird for you because you usually have to initiate feelings like this on purpose, but...is it so bad? Seeing how the other half lives, so to speak?" she smiled.

He thought about that for a moment. "Rose, do you?"

"Do I what?"

He scratched the back of his neck with his free hand. "Do you get these spontaneous...feelings, occasionally?"

"Course I do," she answered calmly, sensing her face was heating up but determined to make him feel relaxed about this. Determined to make _herself_ feel relaxed about it. She'd never had such a long and frank conversation on the topic of sex before, not even that time when she'd quizzed Jack about all things sexual. But the Doctor was her friend and he needed help, and she'd been fine with talking about this with him up until now. She just had to get over the slight embarrassment she felt now the conversation had turned on her. For both their sakes. Besides, it was kind of liberating, being so open about the often tabooed-in-space-and-time topic.

He nodded, trying not to let his mind flit back to what it had stopped him still over, in the corridor, when she'd mentioned the — the self-pleasure, and he'd said that for humans it was natural and ohhhkay now he was thinking of it again: her, doing what was natural. Blimey. He looked down at himself, wondering if this would ever go away. Knowing that with the amalgam of thoughts currently running through his mind, it was unlikely. Unless. Unless he did what she'd suggested. He flushed at the thought.

He decided to speak in order to distract himself. "So...you. Obviously, I mean, you..." No, no, no this was no good, this wasn't distracting him at all, he couldn't - wouldn't - ask her about this, nope, nope, no sir, he couldn't -

"Yeah," she mumbled her answer. "Yeah, obviously I...like you said. For humans, it's natural."

Okay so she was talking about it, right, well, it didn't count then did it - it wasn't his fault if it was her talking about it, so it also wasn't his fault if he continued to think about it, because really it was all completely her fault and well —

"Doctor, earlier, you seemed to have an epiphany," she said carefully. "What was it? What was it you thought of that suddenly made sense? What caused all this to begin with?"

"I — I can't, Rose," he whispered.

"Look, it's just me, yeah? You don't have to be embarrassed. Anything you say can stay within this library, all right? Just you and me."

"That's not helping," he muttered under his breath. He groaned loudly in frustration and tilted his head back, closing his eyes. "You might not like it," he admitted.

Rose's heart sank as she contemplated that possibility. "Oh," she murmured, deflated. It was a person, then. Someone who wasn't her. Right. Okay. Well, she was his friend. She could deal with that. Sure, she'd hoped...but at the end of the day, they were just friends. Best friends. Only ever could be. "Well, tell me anyway," she continued, steeling herself against the inevitable. She could deal with this, she told herself. The niggling voice in her head didn't stop, though; the niggling little reminder that told her he'd break her heart if he said a certain name.

He opened his eyes and looked at her desperately. "You really want me to?"

"Yeah." _But please don't say her name,_ she thought to herself, unable not to. _Please let this not be about her. Anyone, anyone, but her._

"Okay," he exhaled roughly. He gave her hand a quick squeeze then started to explain. "You asked me what I was thinking about, when," he nodded towards his crotch. "This unfortunate thing happened."

"Yes." She swallowed hard. _Don't say Reinette, don't let it be Reinette, please not her._

"Right. Well, you see, I was simply thinking about — about - " he hesitated.

"Yeah?" she prompted.

"Certain...feelings," he continued, his voice going up an octave in his reluctance to admit to this. "Feelings that I have about — about a certain...person."

Rose's heart thumped so hard in her chest that she seriously hoped he could not hear it. "Okay, so...have you thought about these feelings before?"

"Sort of, but I haven't had this spontaneous reaction. I think, maybe, it was because it was the first time I kind of admitted something to myself, rather than trying to just explain it away."

"I see. Okay. So...?"

"I, um. Blimey this is difficult. Okay." He let out a long breath then started again. "Right. You know what we were saying, about the repression of attraction?"

"Yeah?"

"Right, well, I'd been doing that for a while. Until recently."

"Repressing an attraction?" she repeated, just to be sure. Her words nearly lodged in her throat. Jesus, why did she feel so scared? Jealousy, she supposed. But seriously, it wasn't as though she was in a life or death situation here. Yeah, her heart could break by the end of the evening, but, well, hearts could heal. Or so people said, anyway. And she wasn't exactly gonna let her jealousy come between them. She never had before. Besides, it wasn't like he owed her anything in a romantic sense - as far as he was concerned they were best mates, and that was all. Right?

"Yes."

"And then you stopped repressing it?"

"Yes, because, like I said earlier, I realised that it was ridiculous to try and pretend it wasn't there. What I _could_ pretend wasn't there, however, was something...deeper. Because you see, I thought that if I allowed myself to acknowledge the attraction, then I wouldn't have to acknowledge the deeper thing for what it was, because I could just explain it away as a simple fascination, a — a — fixation or a, I don't know, what do you humans call it? A crush, based on the attraction that I felt."

"A...crush," Rose echoed. "Right, yeah, okay, I'm with you so far."

"Except it isn't just a crush, and this evening was the first time I properly allowed myself to actually think the words."

"The words, 'this isn't just a crush?'" she asked.

"No, the words, 'I'm actually in love with her,'" he corrected, then went very still.

Rose's eyes widened. "You're...you're in love?" The Doctor didn't respond; he appeared to be frozen and speechless after his previous words had left his mouth. Rose continued speaking, to fill the uncomfortable silence. "Okay, and so...and so you saying that, in your head or to yourself or whatever, that...triggered this? What, because being in love transcends the need for you to flip your turn-on switch?"

The Doctor swallowed thickly, finally mobilising again. "Um. Well, I s'pose...it sounds silly, doesn't it, but in a way, I s'pose it sort of makes sense. I mean, Time Lords were said to not have the capacity for impulsive, unprompted sexual desire, but then, it was also said that they couldn't fall in love. Which, well, is evidently not the case. So perhaps me accepting the fact that the latter has happened in spite of everything I was brought up to think, enabled me to let go of the need to control that aspect of my being too. And it wasn't like it was a really quick redirection of my blood flow — I was sort of pondering over the matter for a few minutes, and it was only then that I realised I'd, er, reacted. So anyway, letting go of that need to control my emotions and my reactions to certain thoughts — although a rather nice feeling, actually, if I'm completely honest - is somewhat problematic."

"Because she isn't here with you?" Rose guessed, feeling like a lump of coal was settling in her chest, making it a tad difficult for her to breathe properly.

"What? Who isn't here with me?" he asked, confused.

"The person you're in love with," she clarified.

"Oh." 

She didn't get it yet. Right. Okay.

Rose hurried on, "So, are you gonna, you know. Tell her? Or just, keep this to yourself and do what I suggested earlier, and sort that out yourself?" She nodded towards his lap again.

He half-smiled. "What do you suppose she'd want me to do?" he asked softly.

She held her breath for a moment, and pretended that one didn't hurt like a punch to the stomach. Slowly, she released it, and offered her support, "Well, I think you ought to tell her. Everyone deserves to know when someone's in love with them, right?"

His smile grew. "Oh, you're so..."

"What?"

He sighed wistfully. "Nothing." Then he shook his head. "No, wait. Yes. Everything."

"What?" she repeated.

"You're everything. I mean, figuratively speaking. Well, no — I mean — oh, I'm rubbish at this. But people say that, don't they? They say, 'Person A, oh, she means everything to me' — people say that, right? When they — when they love someone?"

Rose nodded. "Yeah, I s'pose."

"Well there you go then."

She squinted at him, not understanding.

"Oh," he realised. "You don't — you still don't get it?"

"Get what?"

He laughed nervously. "Oh blimey. Okay. So now I'm going to either make an even bigger fool of myself or make you irrevocably happy; currently, I can't tell which, because you, Rose Tyler, are a closed book when it comes to this particular emotion."

"Doctor, what are you going on about now?"

"The same thing I've been going on about all evening," he retorted. He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, then tugged on an ear for good measure, blushing as he spoke, "Rose, this, um, this is for you."

"What is?"

He rolled his eyes. "Are you completely daft or are you just doing this in some weird attempt to not hurt my feelings?"

"The former, I think, 'cos I'm now really lost."

"Rose, who, exactly, do you think I could possibly be attracted to in this universe?"

"Well, lots of people, I should imagine," she muttered, totally not pleased with this question.

He raised his eyebrows. "Oh, you think that, do you? All right then, let me narrow it down for you: who, specifically, do you think I could possibly be attracted to on the TARDIS?" She blinked at him. He sighed and specified further, "In this very room? Right now? Sitting in front of me?"

"Well, yeah," Rose said slowly. "I mean, from your reaction in the corridor earlier I figured you think I'm kind of...acceptable, or whatever, but that's just 'cos I'm here and you're turned on at the moment, right?"

"What?" He let go of her hand to run both of his through his hair in frustration. "Rose," he said impatiently. "Have we or have we not been flirting since the first day you stepped aboard the TARDIS?"

"We have?" She considered that a moment. "Well...yeah. Yeah, I s'pose we have."

He nodded in agreement. "Yes, we have. Okay, so, next question. Have I or have I not ever looked at you a certain way prior to the thing in the corridor earlier on?"

Rose's lips twitched. "What, you're saying that I've not just been projecting?"

"Projecting?"

"Yeah, you know, just — wish-fulfillment. Seeing what I want to see, sort of thing?"

"So you wanted me to be looking at you in the I-fancy-you-very-much sort of way?"

"Well, yeah," she admitted, twiddling her earring shyly.

He gave a small giggle of delight. "Well, then. That's handy."

"Yeah?" she said, her smile widening at his obvious enthusiasm.

"Yes."

Rose glanced down, finally letting herself process his words. "So...wait. Hold on a sec. You're in love with me?"

"Yeah," he breathed out roughly.

"And acknowledging that love basically, when all is said and done, caused that?" she whispered, once again nodding towards the source of this entire conversation.

"Yes," he whispered in reply.

"Oh my god."

"Yeah."

"You totally didn't need to go through this rigmarole of a conversation, Doctor," she murmured breathlessly, meeting his gaze. "All you had to do was tell me this earlier, and..."

"And...?" he prompted.

She swallowed hard. "And we could've solved your problem already."

He kept his gaze locked on hers. "Or amplified it."

"Hmm?"

"Well, who knows, maybe once I've had a sample I simply won't ever be able to stop," he smiled slowly, sheepishly, making her giggle.

"For a moment there, I really suspected that I was gonna get my heart broken tonight," she murmured.

His eyes widened. "What, you seriously thought that after all we've been through, after all this time with you, after doing the impossible with you, I could really fall for someone else?" She shrugged, and he shook his head. "No, it's...it's always been you, Rose. Always." He leant closer, holding her gaze, hoping she believed him. "Even when you might've had reason to doubt it, I..."

Rose smiled in relief. "Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yes." Then her smile turned a bit naughtier. He kind of loved it. "So, would you still like me to teach you how to - "

"Hold that thought for later," he murmured, interrupting her. "First, I'd rather something else."

"So you're ready to let go then?" she asked, leaning towards him. "Let go of all your control and just...give in to instinct?"

He chuckled. "Yes," he answered confidently. "Yes, I suppose I am."

"Okay then," she whispered, her lips hovering over his. "Let go."

He did, but not in the way she'd expected. She'd expected him to seize her lips in a fiery passion what with his current state of arousal, but he gave her the sweetest, most tender kiss she'd ever had, slowly easing her backwards on the sofa. He braced himself above her on his elbows, giving her a lazy smile as he pulled his mouth away from hers. "I have a confession," he whispered. "Because, well, I don't want to lie to you."

"Tell me," she murmured back, her expression open.

"I don't need you to show me how to, uh...you know."

"You don't?"

"No."

He was blushing, and she found it adorable. "So...are you saying that you _do_ do that?"

"I have done, once or twice, or maybe, er, a bit more than that, these past few months. I knew what I was capable of feeling, should I act on my attraction to you, so I stupidly thought that if I just flicked the switch and imagined and...well. I thought it'd get it out of my system." He leant forwards and touched his nose to hers playfully, before confiding, "It didn't."

"I'm glad," she beamed. Her hands slid beneath his jacket so that she could get a firm grip on his shirt, and then she pulled him closer. "Let's potentially amplify this problem of yours, Doctor."

"Yes, let's," he agreed with a chuckle, and touched his mouth to hers once more.


End file.
